Ever since Russia began airstrikes in Syria last month, international focus has shifted from eastern Ukraine to the Middle East, where analysts and pundits predicted that droves of Russian volunteers would repeat the Ukrainian scenario.
Sensationalist
headlines about Russian volunteers flooding into Syria have abounded in both
Russian and international press, and Ukraine’s Defense Ministry has even
predicted that Russia would soon set up a recruiting center in occupied
Donetsk.
But experts
and Russian recruiters have painted a very different picture, saying the Syria
hysteria is little more than a red herring meticulously placed by the Kremlin.
The truth
is that only a handful of Russian men have signed up to fight in Syria, and the
idea that the conflict in Syria is close to Russians’ hearts is a myth
perpetrated only by Russian state media, said Alexander Shumilin, an
independent expert and director of the Mideast Conflict Analysis Center in
Moscow.
“This fuss
(over Russian volunteers flocking to Syria) is useful to maintain the necessary
‘militaristic fervor’ among a specific category of Russians – the loyal viewers
of state television. They live in an imaginary world, where Russia is
ruthlessly and uncompromisingly battling with American hegemony – both in
Donbas and Syria (in reality, it doesn’t even matter where, as long as there
are pictures of explosions and things),” Shumilin said.
“Appeals
for volunteers to be sent to Syria are aimed at establishing a connection
between Donbas and Syria in people’s minds,” he said. Chechen leader Ramzan
Kadyrov’s recent declarations that he’d send dozens of his own men to Syria was
a sort of “proxy” message of support for volunteers going to Syria, Shumilin
said.
While
Russia wants its people to think that many of its citizens want to volunteer in
Syria, he said, the last thing the Kremlin wants is for this myth to become a reality.
“The
Kremlin doesn’t want Russians to show up on the battlefield in Syria with
weapons in their hands. … If any Russians wound up held captive by ISIL, their
vicious public execution would undoubtedly have a devastating effect on
ordinary Russians,” he said.
The aspects of the conflict in Ukraine that drew in so many volunteers are
absent in Syria, said Theodore Karasik, a UAE-based geopolitical analyst.
“The
linkage between Ukraine and Syria is a myth. Russia’s view on Ukraine is about
Russian speakers whereas Syria has to deal with the larger issue of threats
from al-Qaeda and Islamic State, and, ultimately, to Russia and Central Asia,”
Karasik told the Kyiv Post.
Russian
expert Georgy Mirsky has echoed that sentiment.
“People went to fight in Ukraine with an idea that the fascists are killing Russian people there, that this is Russian land, but why would they die for the Middle East? To help some Arabs kill other Arabs?” asked Mirsky, a researcher at the Russian Academy of Science, in comments to Kommersant newspaper.
Bondo
Dorovskikh, a Russian citizen who fought alongside separatist forces in eastern
Ukraine before returning to Moscow, has seized the media spotlight recently
with his campaign to recruit Russian volunteers for Syria.
But
Dorovskikh himself speaks of his efforts in a discouraged manner, conceding
that it’s far more difficult to send volunteers to Syria than it was to send
them to Ukraine.
“Very few
people are going (to Syria), I’d say about 20 people from all over Russia, and
that’s the maximum. People were able to go to Donbas without any money, just as
long as they weren’t lazy. But in Syria you have to know English and have
money, and they check everyone very thoroughly. Plus, the Kurdish Peshmerga
take only people with a minimum of four years’ military experience,” Dorovskikh
told the Kyiv Post.
“I can’t
say exactly how many guys from eastern Ukraine have gone, but I know it has
been very very few,” he said, adding that he had been unable to find anyone to
sponsor his initiative.
Maksim
Vaganov, a Muscovite who fought in eastern Ukraine before making his way to
Iraq, backed up Dorovskikh’s statements, saying he hadn’t seen any Russian
volunteers or heard of any others apart from Dorovskikh’s men.
The
sentiment among Russian volunteers in eastern Ukraine seems to run contrary to
that promoted by Russian state media – namely that the conflict in Syria is not
a noble cause but a betrayal of Novorossiya.
Mikhail
Polynkov, the coordinator of the Russian recruitment organization
Dobrovolec.org, distanced himself from Syria altogether, saying he was fed up
with talk of sending Russian volunteers to Syria while “Donbas was almost being
pushed back into Ukraine.”
“It would
be a betrayal of Donbass on my part” to get involved in recruiting volunteers
for Syria, Polynkov said, declining to answer whether or not his organization
had sent anybody to Syria so far.
Russian
news outlet Lenta.ru published an interview on Oct. 14 with a “recruiter” for
Dobrovolec.org known only as Vadim, who said about a dozen volunteers had been
sent to Syria since Russia began its airstrikes there.
Last week,
the organization posted an ad on its website saying “recruitment for Syria has
been halted. Stay tuned for updates.”
Polynkov
declined to comment on what caused the group to cease its recruitment for
Syria.
But perhaps
it is the same sense of having been exploited expressed on Oct. 19 by former
separatist leader Igor Strelkov.
Strelkov –
who relocated to Moscow last year to “protect” President Vladimir Putin from
traitors – has slammed the Kremlin for its new adventures in Syria in an
interview with separatist media.
Describing
the Kremlin’s actions in Syria as a betrayal of pro-Russian separatists in
eastern Ukraine, Strelkov said the
Syrian conflict provided the perfect opportunity for the Kremlin to wash its
hands of Donbas separatists.
“Novorossiya
is closed. And so what that thousands have died and hundreds of thousands have
become refugees?” Strelkov said.
Staff writer Allison Quinn can be reached at [email protected]
